2016 Senior Showcase WrapUp

My name is Jenna Vitale and I am pursuing Interactive Multimedia and Marketing at The College of New Jersey. I consider myself a web designer and have an interest in graphic design. I’ve always had a passion for art and design and I am hoping to have a career that integrates both with my interest in Marketing. When it comes to my work, I am very motivated and not afraid to challenge myself.

For my senior thesis project I created a website with a colleague that helps match people pursuing a part-time job with an employer or a business with a new employee, called JobOpp. All you have to do is sign in with your LinkedIn account, create and edit your profile, and start matching with potential employees and employers by swiping left or right. To build it, we used HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP, Adobe Photoshop, and the LinkedIn API. Once we finished our project we presented it at the IMM Senior Showcase. The IMM Senior Showcase is an annual event highlighting the graduating seniors in the IMM department and their innovative thesis projects. The projects utilize the latest tools, respond to current trends, and reflect the evolving curriculum of the department — ranging from animation, video, electronics, art, design, coding, music, games and anything in between.

While creating JobOpp, my colleague and I faced various challenges, the most significant one being time. We wish we started coding JobOpp earlier; we were coding right up until the Senior Showcase. During development we kept a strict week-by-week schedule to keep us on track to ensure we finished by the showcase. Another challenge we faced was branding our project with an original name and logo. To overcome this we did a lot of research for possible names and created multiple logos and asked our class for feedback.

One piece of advice we would share with future students is to pick an idea that you know will challenge you. You will learn a lot through the process and have a project you will be very proud of! Another piece of advice we would share is to spend most of your time on your project. This is going to be the most important part of your portfolio to show off to employers. Lastly, your project doesn’t stop after you graduate; continue and expand on your idea and make it something that is truly innovative and inspiring to others!